Student Perspectives – Cinematic Space

Dakota Fitzsimmons on visualizing what’s at stake:

“The most important thing that I learned and that I take with me into my artistic practice is that we have to be visually transformative with our stories. Take loneliness, for example. It’s not enough for a character to be alone in a scene or to look sad in a frame. You have to place them in the world of the film that makes them alone. In the case of Outskirted, I had to create a world in which her heart and soul and feelings are on screen and not buried solely in acting, hence making her a late-night DJ. It’s not simply enough to show someone being lonely/depressed/sad/joyful. You have to visualize that deeply rooted feeling and reality.

Transforming the main obstacle or feeling that your character is grappling with into something physical will allow your audience to have buy-in that they may not have inherently had available to them at the start. In Outskirted, visualizing Jo’s need to belong in the form of an alien abduction allows Jo the opportunity for connection, one that she is deeply missing. It also allows the audience to see a version of what this connection feels like in an unexpected way. Visualizing Jo’s feelings in this manner makes it possible to not only tell more diverse and widely impactful stories, but allows me to create worlds that distill what I’m feeling and trying to say into something that can be broadly understood through visual storytelling.”

• Film Title: Outskirted
• Logline: A deeply lonely late-night DJ is abducted by an alien and must decide if she wants to stay on Earth.